The Job Hunt Blues

People often tell you that looking for work is a full time job. Those people are correct. It is actually the WORST job ever because you don’t get paid and the more you have do it, the worse you feel about yourself. Like a regular job, you need a work-life balance. This is actually more important than it is in a regular job, because companies need to see you at your best. If you’re too eager, or mopey, or tired your chances of success decrease slightly. Sitting at home doing the same thing over and over again with little or no success really demotivates a lot of people and they start complaining about everything, including the lack of employment in their respective areas. This is not attractive to any prospective employer.

Lucky for you, I’ve put together one of my famous numbered lists to solve all your problems.

1.       Wake Up at an Appropriate Time

It’s really easy when you don’t have a place to be, to sleep in, watch cartoons and live the sedentary life. You still have to put in the hours to be an effective job seeker. Also, interviews are always during work hours, so you’ll most likely need to be alert for a morning interview. It’s hard to do that at a 9am interview if you’re used to waking up at noon.

2.       Plan a Full Workday

It’s really easy to get sidetracked when you don’t have a plan. Create a job hunting strategy and map out all of the tasks involved.  You know when you are the most effective, so you can plan the heavy stuff for those times. You need to take into consideration the time it takes to fill out applications, write cover letters and tailor your resume. Make sure you include time to use social networking for job hunting purposes, and attend physical networking events as well. A former employer of mine once told me not to work on any one task for more than two hours at a time. He says after this time, you become less interested and less efficient. Change it up every now and then.

3.       Take Breaks

The reason steps 1 and 2 are important is that if you do them properly, you won’t feel guilty about taking regularly scheduled breaks. Your employer is required to give you a 15 minute break every four hours and 30 minutes for lunch on a full shift. If he’s not a douchebag, he gives you a full hour. Take those breaks. They are government mandated for a reason. Don’t be your own douchebag boss.

4.       Don’t Forget About Your Hobbies/Personal Life

If you are a regular gym-goer, now is not the time to stop. You should also take this opportunity to start eating healthier. Continue to go out and see people on a regular basis. Doing stuff from a computer at your kitchen table and then moving to the couch at 5pm, and then to bed and back to the table in the morning can make you a little crazy. The networking events you attend won’t be enough. Plan things with your friends and go out at night. Be a regular person even though you don’t have a job…just do it cheaply cause you’re poor.

When you neglect to properly plan and execute your job hunting strategy, you start to feel guilty about how little you’ve done. Then you don’t take time for yourself. This results in you being less effective. It’s a vicious cycle that ultimately results in a pint of ice-cream, a lot of crying and still no jobs. The worst thing you can do for yourself at this juncture is take away the things that make you sane. Also, if you have good friends, they will pay for things because they feel sorry for you. You won’t get this kind of treatment again until someone you love dies (true story).

P.S. These strategies can also be applied to people who work from home or for themselves. 

Networking Doesn’t Stop Being Important Just Because You’re Employed

Remember when you were looking for work, and people kept telling you the best way to find employment was to network both on and offline? Specifically, you should remember ME telling you that. Well once you start working, your networking shouldn’t stop. Opportunities are going to continue to present themselves outside of your current position and you still need to be visible to really take advantage of them.

Reasons to Network

Side Projects: Other motivated people will always have some kind of side project on the go that will enhance your resume beyond what your current job can offer you.

Random Really Cool Stuff: There is always some kind of event going on that you only really know about because you’re connected to the right people.

Finding Out How Much You’re Worth: If you’re decent at your job, and others see what you can do, you could start getting offers to “jump ship.” Then you see things like how much another company is willing to pay you, and you can feel confident asking for a raise.

New Job Opportunities You Never Would Have Thought of: Sometimes, you SHOULD jump ship and try something completely new. Sitting at your desk doing the same thing over and over followed by going directly home and not engaging with people outside your circle of friends really limits this opportunity.

You Could Be Looking Again: Someday your company could shut down, downsize, or just start to suck altogether. You’ll want to be able to exploit all of your contacts for a speedy job search. Remember, the bigger your network, the shorter the search.

Networking at Work

Meet Everyone at Work: Make a point to engage with as many people within and outside the company as possible. Vendors, agencies, clients…pretty much anyone.

Be Involved in Your Community: People are 300% more impressed with you when you are working vs when you are unemployed (Warning, may not be an actual statistic). So why not meet people at these events when you’re impressive rather than waiting until you’re sad and poor?

Leverage Social Media: Your community is going to have some kind of event calendar posted somewhere whether it is created by your local Chamber of Commerce or the city or town that you live in. Whoever has created it is going to love it when you comment, share or retweet it. This will also increase your presence among people who attend these events, even before attending them. Make sure to add all of your contacts to LinkedIn and Twitter as you meet them, so it doesn’t look so desperate later when you contact them (i.e. try to exploit them).

There are millions of ways to network. For a reminder on how to use social media to do it properly, check out an earlier post Dude, Where's My Job 2 - Networking Revisited. Remember, if you’re an introvert and have difficulty networking and meeting new people, just get over it cause there’s no real alternative that would yield the same results. 

Jumping Ship: Switching Careers

Remember when you started your career and you were super-excited about all the things you could accomplish? You had lists of goals, creative ideas, and enthusiasm. Over time, you may have found that the industry you work in, or the management team you work for, have slowly chipped away at all of that excitement and now every day is just a struggle not to slit your own wrists. It may be time for a career shift (or medication).

If you started in Human Resources like I did, you may have found that your position had significantly less “strategic consulting” and a lot more “glorified secretary” work. You also probably noticed that there was so much process and red tape, that anything new or innovative you came up with won’t be implemented for years, and by then it will be outdated.

Don’t’ get discouraged. Basically, you played Russian roulette with the career revolver and lost. Luckily, the consequences are less brain-spattery than actual Russian roulette and you can bounce back a lot faster.

Step 1 – Don’t quit your day job

The economy still sucks.  You need money. Food and shelter are still very important components of staying alive. You may not have any experience in this new industry you’re entering. Keeping your day job and testing the new industry in your spare time is an excellent way to not make the same mistake twice. Also, people will want to see proof that you know what you’re doing before they hire you. It’s a weird thing companies are doing now.

Step 2 – Start doing what you love

Just start doing it. If you want to be an events planner, start small. Host a dinner party. People will give you feedback on how terrible you are, and you can see if it is something you want to do full time. You can take on additional, larger events as opportunities arise. Once you develop a reputation, people will start asking you to do it, and maybe even pay you! …unless you suck…in which case, you still have your day job.

Step 3 – Advertise

Keep a portfolio of the new projects you’re working on. You don’t have to spend money on advertising. Post your portfolio on LinkedIn, Facebook, Blogger or any relevant account where your target audience would be.

Step 4 – Network

Develop a list of relevant people to follow and engage with online and learn how to do it properly. Think about where your target customer/employer will see you and who they engage with. If you would like to become an event planner, you should be interacting with companies that plan events, the events themselves (which will normally have their own social media accounts or at least a Facebook event) , and anyone else who is interested in what you’re doing. The more people sharing pictures of your place settings on Pinterest, or talking about you on Twitter, the better.

This gives you an opportunity to test out a new job risk-free. It’s like an internship, but more impressive because of the entrepreneurial aspect of having to create the opportunity yourself. After a while, you’ll have developed enough experience to make yourself a marketable employee in a completely new industry. …or you’ll have realized this job isn’t for you, but without getting all wrist-cutty. 

Stirring It Up With Cocoamotion

When I showed up to Leo Hayes High School to interview the staff of Cocoamotion, I was certainly not expecting a group of enthusiastic students working hard on a Wednesday night. (Having watched Mean Girls four times, I consider myself an expert in teenage culture.) The room was full of mugs in the process of having a chalkboard surface applied, and the atmosphere put most corporate cultures to shame. They were genuinely excited about their product, and even over the course of the interview they were coming up with new (good) ideas.

Cocoamotion is one of four companies from the Junior Achievers Company Program in Fredericton. Junior Achievement is a Not for Profit Organization that provides youth with experiences that promote financial literacy, entrepreneurship and work readiness skills. The Company Program teams high school students with professional volunteer consultants to design, organize and operate a real business. It basically blows your typical high school entrepreneurship class out of the water.

The team sells $7 specialty mugs with 2 mugs worth of hot chocolate and marshmallows and a stick of chalk. The face of the mug has a rectangular chalkboard surface that allows you to doodle, erase, and re-doodle.

When asked about the idea, the team responded that they wanted to “make” something versus buying an assortment of things, repackaging them and selling them for a profit. Mugs had been done by teams in previous years, but no one had ever made it possible for the consumer to personalize them.

Cocoamotion could have appeared to be somewhat of an underdog in this competition. They have the fewest members AND the fewest number of consultants. They also have a fairly young team. Of the 22 members there are 2 in grade 11, 1 in grade 10, the rest are in grade 9 and none of them have ever taken part in the Junior Achievers program before. When asked about how they feel their numbers affect their sales, they noted that they all have to work harder, less people can slack off and everyone has to pull their weight. However, they did note that it might make it a little easier to coordinate amongst the group. In addition to the three hours per week they dedicate to the project, they’ve added a few extra hours to keep up with demand.

In week 10 of an 18 week project, the team has already broken even. Out of 14 teams across New Brunswick they are one of three who have been able to accomplish this. They also noted that while other teams’ sales appear to be slowing down, theirs are picking up. When asked about the pricing they noted that they wanted to charge $5, but they wouldn’t be making much off it. Most teams were charging $10, but at $10 people start thinking more critically about their purchase, and so they settled on $7. They also had the foresight to purchase a food license so they could sell their products at the market, exclaiming that their product fit well with the market clientele.

The entire process has been a learning experience for the whole team. They admitted they didn’t really know what they were doing at first and a lot of what they know now came from trial and error. When I asked about the communications strategy they noted that it kind of developed on its own. They knew they were going to use Facebook, and they created some posters to put up around the school. Since then, they have added a kijiji ad that has received almost 200 hits since December 10^th. All of the members have been using their own social networking sites to promote the product as well. Also, in the near future they plan to launch a twitter site.

I know what you’re thinking …and you are correct. The bovine steroids in our meat have mutated our children into successful capitalists much faster than previous generations. I would have loved to have sat there and listened to them continue to come up with new ideas, but they kicked me out at 8pm so they could spend more time working.

Cocoamotion will be at the W.W. Boyce Farmer’s Market this Sunday from  10am to 3pm. If you can’t make it to the market, track them down on Facebook 

https://www.facebook.com/CocoamotionJANB

Or respond to their kijiji ad 

http://fredericton.kijiji.ca/c-ViewAd?AdId=337604686&MessageId=MSG.VIEW_AD.USER_REGISTERED&mpname=User-Registration&mpuid=1700018%3B289%3B337604686%3B-2619490358%3B%3B

I want to thank all of the members of Cocoamotion who met with me.

Katarina (Co-President)

Amber (Co-President)

James (VP of Production)

Juno (VP of Marketing)

Alec (VP of IT)

Kyusung (VP of Finance)

See you at the market on Sunday!!!